


A Scientist is Always Fine

by Aeralyn



Category: Critical Hit (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Real World, Chronic Illness, F/F, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mild Blood/Gore, Panromantic Ace Randus
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-27
Updated: 2018-02-06
Packaged: 2018-12-07 13:09:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11624193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aeralyn/pseuds/Aeralyn
Summary: An extremely self-indulgent real world AU where Orem and Randus are scientists andhijinks ensueeveryone suffers forever. Featured characters will also include Trelle, Kammis, Torq, and maybe some other guys. I don't have a planned story for this, I'm currently seeing where it wants to to go  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯On hiatus until I get over whatever is making me write gore because I didn't intend for so much gore.





	1. And so Randus met him

**Author's Note:**

> I'm writing this because I just really identify with Orem and Randus a lot sometimes, and so it was natural for me to project some science fantasy on them. I apologize for all the weird technical jargon, some of it is made up and some of it isn't, as always. A PI (principle investigator) is the head researcher of a lab whose primary job is to secure funding, decide the direction of the research with is actually done by their underlings, and generally make said underlings miserable.

Even for a place like the Cerulean Institute of Applied Medicine and Biomechanics, this evening’s events were particularly strange and Torq was _not_ happy about it. Orem’s increasingly shrill shouting drew his attention from the city police officers trying to press their way into the secure facility. “Sorry sir, ma’am, y’aint got the clear, ah, the clearance to go on in there.” He shouldered out of the thick stainless steel door and slammed it behind him, ignoring the bickering officers that followed in his wake as he stumped over to the ambulance.

A sturdy paramedic was trying to pull Orem away from the back of vehicle as his partner was locking the stretcher in place. The young scientist was quite short and thin to the point of frailty, and as such was not faring well in the altercation. Torq steadied the slender young man with one ham-sized hand and pushed the paramedic from him with the other, smiling affably. “Ima have teh ask ye not to do that.” The paramedic tried ineffectually to resist being pushed away, sputtering with indignation. “Now, what seems teh be the problem?” He asked, interrupting the man’s complaints.

“I need to be in that ambulance with him!” Orem shouted, already scrambling to climb into the still open back of the vehicle.

“Absolutely not! It’s strictly against regulation-“ The paramedic redoubled his effort to escape Torq’s clutches to no avail, his complaint cut short as a good-natured pat on the shoulder from Torq buckled his knees.

“Ent no harm lettin Orem back there, s’long as you get right on to the Hospital, now is there?” Torq asked, still amiable. With his other hand he lifted Orem easily by the back of his lab coat into the ambulance and slammed the doors shut.

“What do you think you’re doing?” The paramedic shouted, looking nearly apoplectic in his rage.

“This here’s an emergency, I’m jest helpin out.” Torq smiled even more broadly as he placed a firm hand on the man’s back and pushed him toward the driver’s side door.

Grumbling obscenities under his breath, the paramedic jumped up into the cab of the ambulance. “Fat lot of help you two are,” he shouted at the frustrated police officers, making a rude gesture at them as the ambulance’s engine roared to life.

The female officer shrugged helplessly and waved a limp hand at her partner, who had been trying to convince Torq to submit to handcuffs throughout the exchange. Once more, Torq waded inexorably through the officer and stepped up into the passenger side of the cab. “That man is a force of nature,” she said wearily to her partner as the ambulance screeched away from the curb, the driver clearly still yelling.

***

In the back of the ambulance, Orem was pulling on gloves and rolling up the sleeves of his lab coat, lips compressed into a thin pale line. “Tourniquet, now,” he snapped at the paramedic, while desperately applying pressure to the wounded arm of the stocky young man secured to the stretcher. The volume of blood seeping out in pulses between his gloved fingers was beginning to pick up.

“Wha- what are you…? Look, wearing a white coat doesn’t make you a doctor,” the woman replied, trying to push Orem aside.

“Yes, well, you didn’t see what happened. Maybe they’ll save the arm and maybe they won’t, but he has an arterial cut and the treatment he applied to lessen the bleeding is wearing off. I would prefer he not exsanguinate, so tourniquet. Now.” Orem didn’t bother to look up at the woman. He just shifted his hands on the gaping wound, trying to find a more effective angle. The paramedic gauged the increasing flow of blood from beneath Orem’s hands and silently began cinching a tourniquet around the unconscious man’s upper arm.

***

In the cab of the ambulance, the other paramedic restricted himself to a single irate sidelong glance at the enormous man in the passenger seat before devoting his full attention to his job. “So how did a dense guy like you get hired at a place like that?” He needled, still seething.

“They hired me because I git stuff done, an sometimes bein’ dense helps wi’ that, like keepin people from goin’ where they shouldn’t. If ye mean to say I’m stupid, well, it was me what got Orem up in the back an’ you in the front an’ not his fancy talkin’, so far’s I can tell I ent the stupid one.” Torq’s voice was smug as he made his retort. Not for nothing was he in charge of security for this particular facility. He was good at his job for reasons beyond his massive size and strength, and he knew it.

The paramedic bristled at the thought of being manipulated by hired muscled, but couldn’t come up with anything to say that would help his own case. He remained quiet for the remainder of the ride.

-Six months earlier-

Orem looked wearily up at his principle investigator, Valdren Darkmist, who was standing before his desk. “You have _got_ to be kidding me. You can’t _seriously_ be considering this uneducated _child_ for the position,” he groaned. The excruciating emphasis interspersed through his complaint was only partially dramatic- this candidate was woefully underqualified to take over the fabrications facility, and the thought of the research setbacks this could cause was making him physically ill.

Valdren prefaced his response with a coldly polite smile and leaned down towards the post-doctoral scholar’s face. “That so called ‘child’ is no younger than you, and a prodigy in his field. As I make exceptions for your attitude in deference to your family’s name, so too do I make exceptions in formal qualifications in deference to raw potential. Now show your new colleague to his facility, I’m sure he is anxious to become familiar with the equipment.”

“Very well, Dr. Darkmist. I shall see to it.” Orem waited until the senior faculty member had made a crisp heel-turn and sauntered victoriously out of the office before burying his face in his hands and groaning. He allowed himself to wallow in self-pity for less than a minute before gathering his courage about him and heading downstairs to meet his impending doom.

In the foyer of the building, the man Orem sought was nowhere to be found. However, he could hear the familiar voice of Torq, head of security, engaged in conversation down the hall. Since no one else was likely to be downstairs at this time of day, Orem went to investigate.

“Indeed… if you wanted to add a rotational feature just for show, that would be adequate. However, I think you would find that, for practical applications, a tripartite array would provide enhanced structural stability and downward force. Furthermore, a ratcheting action would prevent slippage and accelerate the chopping process,” said an unfamiliar voice.

 _This is just great; the new guy is already getting suckered into Torq’s ridiculous hobby…_ Orem thought as he approached Torq’s office. “Torq, you know you’re not supposed to bring axes to work,” he said irritably upon seeing the faithful security chief proudly displaying one such object to an unfamiliar man. The man’s back was to the doorway, but he turned promptly in response to the interruption. He was somewhat on the short side and stocky, with unruly brown hair and a pair of heavy-duty safety goggles sitting askew over his forehead.

“Hi Orem. Ya know, yer always sayin’ that, but what am I surpossed to do without it while yer workin’ ‘til all hours of the night? Gets mighty borin’ down here.” Torq was a big man, unusually tall and broad, as well as heavily muscled. He had a bulldog’s underbite, coarse black hair, and deep set black eyes that were often twinkling with humor. 

“I don’t know, you could always go home for a start,” Orem replied. As Torq started to protest, Orem quickly lifted a pale hand and interrupted him. “No no, that’s not what I came down here for.” Turning to the stranger, he crossed his arms and cocked his head just slightly to the right. “Randus Duthane I presume? I’ll be bringing you up the fabrications facility now.”

“Ah, indeed! That would be great, and it’s a pleasure to meet you, Dr…?” Randus’s sentence trailed off questioningly, and he extended a hand.

“Orem Rivendorn. This way please,” Orem kept his arms crossed and gazed witheringly at the proffered hand, which Randus withdrew sheepishly.

Orem swept out of the office. Behind him, Torq patted Randus gingerly on the shoulder with a sympathetic smile. “Nice ta meecher Randus, an’ don’t mind Orem. He’s just a mite prickly at first.” 

“So, ah, I take it you’re the lead researcher on the integrative biomechanics projects?” Randus asked warily. He was soft-spoken, with a throaty voice that was at least, in Orem’s opinion, not immediately irritating.

“That is correct. So tell me, what exactly are your prodigious achievements that landed you a position in an internationally renowned laboratory without completing any formal education?” Orem prodded. The question was certainly rude enough, but his tone was not as vicious as it could have been. He was certain that Valdren wouldn’t go so far as to actually hire an incompetent technician just to irritate him, so Orem was genuinely interested in this man’s abilities.

“Um. Well, I am quite proficient in electrical and mechanical engineering. I have also been dabbling in machine learning and AI recently, and my assistant here won a robotics competition just a few weeks ago.” 

Orem stopped abruptly, right hand on the railing and left foot hovering above the next step of the staircase. His eyebrows were lifted incredulously when he turned to look back at Randus. A crab-like robot the size of a tea saucer scuttled out of a large pocket on the man’s coat and stood at attention on his shoulder. Orem brought his face close to inspect it, which the device responded to by shuffling its optical array around and standing a bit taller. From that distance, Orem could hear faint whirring and clicking sounds coming from within.

Without warning, the small robot lifted a mandible-like appendage and pricked the skin on Orem’s cheek. As he was jumping back, a small reel of paper began printing out of its back, which it tore off and handed to Randus. “Hmmm. According to its biological observations, it recommends you increase your dietary intake by 500 calories per day and increase your sleep duration by approximately 40%,” Randus said thoughtfully after interpreting the test results.

“I will… take that into consideration, I suppose.” Orem rubbed his cheek thoughtfully. The gloom lifted off of him like fog dissipating in the morning sun as he weighed the evidence of Randus’s skill. “Come on, the sooner you become familiar with the facilities, the sooner we can get to work. I have several problems that I think you could solve for me quite handily.” After receiving a complete tour of both the fabrications lab and Orem’s own spotless benches, the two young men sat down to an animated discussion of the facility’s ongoing research projects.

-Present time-

When Orem attempted to scrub in to the operating theater along with the ER surgical team, the doctor motioned for a nurse to head him off.

“What’s your relationship to the patient, sir?” The nurse inquired solemnly.

“He’s my best friend, please, just let me come in. I’m an MD PhD.”

“I’m sorry sir, you’ll have to wait outside,” the nurse replied, eyes compassionate over their mask.

“Please just, whatever you have to do, just don’t let him die,” Orem said, voice faltering. An enormous hand engulfed his shoulder as the nurse turned away to enter the theater. Torq was there beside him, and in an instant had pulled Orem into a surprisingly gentle hug. 

“Don’t you worry Orem, Randus’ll be a’right. He’s a tough’n. Let’s go sit down,” Torq said softly as he shepherded Orem towards the waiting area.

“I hope you’re right.” Orem responded listlessly.

After ushering Orem to a seat, Torq waited expectantly for the impending diatribe to start. How physicians stole the term ‘doctor’ from PhDs to feed their overgrown sense of self-importance. How he knew more about recent developments in medicine and abnormal physiology than any five of them combined. How none of them respected his expertise, his degree, or his white coat, which of course he’d earned the hard way, the _real_ way. Defying all logic and the very nature of his own being, Orem instead sat quietly, his hands folded in his lap and pressed firmly against his lower abdomen.

“I caint believe ye told them nursies ye got an MD, what with how ye treat that like a insult,” Torq prodded, turning to inspect Orem’s face for any indication of where his holier-than-though attitude had run off to. But Orem’s expression was only blank and strained; his throat was working almost convulsively. 

“Are ye doin okay there Orem?” Torq asked, giving his companion’s shoulder a little shake. Orem gagged at the jarring motion and turned his head just in time to avoid vomiting blood into his own lap. Torq sighed heavily as they both looked at the blood, turning bright red with oxygenation on the floor. “Guess not.”


	2. A Farewell to Arm(s)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which this story gets away from me entirely, becomes an Orem/Randus shipping fic (?) and two budding romances are glimpsed under duress.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops, I meant to include a note on the preposterously dangerous French pressure cell press (the French press discussed in this chapter)! It's a terribly antiquated piece of laboratory equipment that takes whole cells and applies a huge amount of pressure and sheering force to chop up the cell's outer membrane, the fragments of which form small inside-out bubbles. It's hugely important in the study of membrane proteins. They can also explode if handled improperly. The horrifying bit is that most French presses are very old and the parts for them aren't available anymore due to the safety concerns associated with them, so all of my friends who use them have these ancient machines patched up with makeshift replacement parts, making them even more unsafe.

Randus gently smoothed the white cotton coverlet of his hospital bed with his left hand and tried not to think about what he would see if he turned his head to right. It would be a lot easier to distract himself if they’d let him have some things from his workshop, but the doctors he’d spoken to had been horrified at the suggestion. If he asked again the odds were good they’d force him to have that psychiatric evaluation he’d blearily refused that morning on the grounds of still being heavily sedated. He’d made his mental clarity out to be worse than it actually was, but it was bad enough. He’d been drifting fuzzily in and out of consciousness since the morning, fretting (when he was awake) over the unfamiliarity of the hospital and doctors. As if summoned by his very thoughts, Randus heard a loud argument approaching in the hall. He hadn’t been awake much, and the morphine was dulling his senses, but he already recognized the warning sign of his treatment team’s noisome approach.

This time however, a short and slight figure with long blond hair was accompanying the gaggle of hospital personnel. Through frosted glass it was impossible to make out the features of this figure, but Randus had met very few people who both fit that profile and would be likely to argue at such a prodigious volume with medical professionals outside his hospital room. 

Unfortunately, when the door burst open, it wasn’t Orem that came in but rather his sister. She saw Randus’s face fall slightly and smiled kindly at him. “Now that you’re stable enough, we’ll be moving you to our hospital. I’m sure you’ll be more comfortable there.” She reached out to Randus, and for a moment he was half-sure she would actually touch him, something he’d noticed she and Orem did only under extreme duress. 

Her hand stopped short however. Kammis flipped her palm quickly up just as a small robot scuttled out of the loose sleeve of her lab coat into her waiting cupped fingers. It jumped the last few inches to his own hand, which he’d tentatively lifted, without any hesitation. Randus smiled as the assistant quickly scuttled up his arm to sit on his shoulder, whirring and clicking in a comforting manner.

“Orem thought you could do with some company,” Kammis said.

“Ma’am, you can’t come waltzing in here and expect to whisk a patient away from our ICU. Mr. Duthane only regained consciousness earlier today, and given the… unusual nature of his injuries, we not only intend to keep him under observation, but also have a number of questions that need answering. Just to start with, how exactly did Mr. Duthane come in with wounds like that outside of a war zone? And if you’re representing his employer, how do you figure we’d release him into your custody when those injuries occurred in your supposedly secure facility? For that matter,” Kammis had waited patiently for the doctor to make his point, which proved fruitless as he warmed to his tirade. She gave up the moral high ground with clear disappointment and interrupted him by slapping a sheaf of papers against his chest.

“You’ll find that everything is in order and the transfer is already approved. Our medevac helicopter will be arriving presently, and I expect that you won’t further detain my patient,” She said sweetly, eyes wide and shimmering with a veneer of innocent meekness he knew to be entirely manufactured.

“Now listen here,” The doctor began irately, preparing to launch into another diatribe on Kammis’s delusional demands, no doubt. However, as he began reflexively scanning the paperwork thrust upon him, his jaw dropped in disbelief. “I don’t know how you scammed our chief of medicine into signing this, but I swear I’ll do everything in my power to…” The doctor was once again cut off by the appearance of a harried looking young man in a suit, who began frantically waving his hands in the universally understood signal for ‘no more’ as soon as he heard the words coming out of the older man’s mouth.

“My thanks, Dr… whomever. It’s been a pleasure I’m sure, but I’ll just be taking Randus up to the helipad now.” Kammis beamed at the red-faced, fuming man and began disconnecting wires and peeling electrodes off of Randus’s chest. After double-checking that everything remaining attached to him would move with the bed, she disabled the stops and wheeled him out of the room while his former treatment team looked on with expressions ranging from perverse amusement, to shock, to rage.

Randus tried to suppress a groan and a wince as the bed’s motion caused him to shift slightly, but Kammis was watching keenly for any sign of distress. “I was going to have to bump your morphine before transport anyhow, you don’t have to act tough,” she told him quietly, plunging a syringe into one of the ports of his IV. The morphine hit him like a punch in the stomach, and he gasped reflexively as a wave of numbness flooded his body. He struggled to keep his eyes open a moment longer. “Just sleep, when you wake up you’ll be home,” She said gently as they glided into an elevator.

“Orem…?” Randus steeled his focus, forcing his mouth to form just one word as he melted toward the painless dark of unconsciousness.

“Yeah, he’ll be there too when you wake up,” Kammis replied absently, double-checking what could only be his dosage chart. As he lost the battle to keep his eyes open, he thought he heard her mutter “That’s what I thought” under her breath. He went into the waiting darkness with a small smile lingering at the edges of his lips.

***

Orem was lying flat on his back on a comfortably plush hospital bed of his own. He rested, arms by his sides and palms up like a corpse. He was so still and pale that an onlooker could be forgiven for thinking he was one. The intense overhead lights didn’t do his complexion any favors, rendering his pale skin nearly translucent and setting purple shadows across his features. When the door clicked quietly open, his eyes snapped open and focused intently on the stranger standing at the entrance of his room. 

A young woman with bright green hair and brown skin was standing in the doorway, staring at him with a clear look of confusion. “You’re not… Randus? Duthane? No you have, well, two arms. Uh. Sorry, wrong room.” Her speech was halting and uncertain.

“Don’t you know how to read? This a clean room. Mask, gown, booties. You know, standard hospital protocol?” Orem snapped at her from the bed, although he remained otherwise perfectly still. “No uninvited visitors?” He added when the young woman remained frozen in place.

“I uh, I’m looking for someone else? Room ICC-01, which is this room?” She stammered.

“Yes, that would be this room. Clearly Randus isn’t here. Nor, I expect, would he be in any condition to speak with… What are you? A snooping reporter? A legal shill? You don’t look like a mechanic or an engineer so I sincerely doubt you’re one of his friends,” Orem replied testily, eyeing the small notebook and recording device she was clutching in one hand.

“Hey! I’m a representative of the Twilight Guardians, not some lowlife! This case stinks of workplace safety violations and breach of standard patient care procedures. We just wanted to make contact to let Mr. Duthane know we’re available to protect his personal interests!” The young woman blurted an irritable reply, then covered her mouth with both hands, realizing she’d blown her cover to a stranger in a hospital bed. In the middle of a hospital owned by the institution guilty of the misdeeds against the patient she was trying to find.

“That’s what I thought. Hunting for lawsuits. I would strongly encourage you to leave before the resident director comes through on her rounds and finds you in here, willfully endangering an immunocompromised patient in an isolated clean room. Unless of course you really do want a lawsuit, in which case, feel free to stay.” Orem did his best to look haughty and threatening, which was difficult from his unmoving, supine position.

The young woman opened and closed her mouth a few times, making a series of inarticulate noises before she finally backed out of the room. “Don’t think you’ve won just because I’m leaving your room!” she hissed back at Orem before closing the door and slinking off down the hallway.

Orem just snorted and closed his eyes. He considered alerting security about the breach, but the call button was just out of his reach, so he put the thought aside and returned to his meditation, focused on breathing as shallowly as he could.

***

Randus wasn’t sure when he’d become aware of his gradual drift back towards consciousness. He was lost somewhere in a sea of sedatives, drifting on the tides, sometimes closer and sometimes farther from the shores of awareness. When he eventually washed up on the beach of his own mind, it was with mild regret that he opened his eyes groggily to face what was currently a rather unpleasant reality.

Kammis however had been good to her word, not that he’d doubted her, really. He recognized the bright but warm full spectrum light bathing the room, a standard in the Institute’s facilities. The air still smelled of harsh disinfectants though, and he was definitely still in a hospital bed. The Rivendorns had a curious concept of ‘home’, one he was becoming quite familiar with. As his vision cleared, Randus looked to his left to see another hospital bed, precariously close to his own. The room was clearly not intended for two occupants, but there was just enough space for the panoply of monitors and IV drip bags attached to him without infringing on the much smaller collection of medical equipment surrounding Orem’s bed.

Randus’s bed was propped upright at a normal 50-ish degree angle, which made for a comfortable reclined sitting position supported by a number of pillows. Orem on the other hand was lying completely flat. He was preternaturally still, his breathing so shallow and slow that it was nearly imperceptible. Randus recognized his friend’s ‘sick cloths’, as he referred to them, from previous hospital visits. Orem was wearing a loose pair of thick, soft pants, a long silk robe, and plush slippers. This particular robe was new, an opalescent blue-green color that shone beautifully in the bright light and cast shadows of an absolutely ghastly color against Orem’s lilac-tinged skin. 

A new robe meant Kammis was trying to cheer up a particularly sick Orem through bribery.  
Randus couldn’t move much without inciting searing pain in his right side, but narrowing his eyes, he could see that Orem was too stiff to be asleep. Although the robe was draped flat, the cloth ran unevenly across his abdomen, sloping upward toward Orem’s right side, further distorted by two prominent raised lumps. Turning his head further, Randus noted that the tubes coming off of Orem’s IV stands entered his robe from the top and left no downward trace, another decidedly bad sign.

“Hey, Orem.” Randus said weakly, voice choked by disuse.

Orem’s eyes snapped open, and he turned his head sharply to look up at Randus. “You’re awake!”

“What, happened? Are you…?” Randus mumbled, pausing mid-sentence to clear his throat.

“The French press you were fiddling with exploded; we barely managed to keep you from bleeding out.” Orem interrupted, scowling. He would likely have gone on, but seemed to be out of breath.

“No, you, are you okay?” Randus finished, wincing deeply as he leaned forward to get a better look at his friend.

“Randus, you… You lost your arm, most of your ribs are broken on the right side, you’re covered in stitched up gashes. It’s honestly a miracle you didn’t develop a pneumothorax.” Orem replied. He took a deeper breath to do so, and his expression became even more strained. “Don’t worry about me, you almost died. I was behind you, perfectly safe.”

Frowning, Randus scooched as far left as he could in his bed, gripped the edge of Orem’s robe, and flipped it open. He did vaguely remember being thrown back against Orem, slamming his slender frame hard against the wall with his full body weight, the two of them crumpling to the floor in a heap.

The right side of Orem’s abdomen was horribly swollen, angry red lines of infection spreading from two incision sites. One of the raised lumps previously concealed by the robe was a nasty jagged tear several inches above and slightly to the right of his navel, closed by neat sutures that bulged outward from the inflammation beneath. A second, similar wound just medial to the crest of Orem’s hip had caused the second lump. The tearing at the lower site was less severe, although the swelling and redness seemed just as bad. A round port about the size of a large button sat just below the sutured wound, and looked to be freshly placed, with lymph still barely seeping from under the edges.

“That’s… Orem, are you…? And that infection…? You should be in a clean room, and those, shouldn’t they be, covered?” Randus settled back, but his hand remained outstretched, gripping the rail of Orem’s bed. He’d known Orem was sick from the first time they’d met, although the degree of severity had unraveled over time. Orem wasn’t as good as he thought at hiding his reliance on the gastrojejunostomy ports, but Randus had never seen them before. It was easy to surmise that they didn’t usually look so… torturous.

Orem flicked the robe closed with a grimace before answering. “We _are_ in my clean room. They’re letting me off wound dressing as long as I keep covered with these new, treated anti-microbial robes Kammis supplied. And the infection is under control, you should’ve seen it yesterday.” Orem spoke slowly, pausing to breathe shallowly between each sentence.

“I did actually have a depressurizing thoracic puncture, but it turns out my wound patches work as well as we expected,” Randus said thoughtfully after a long pause.

“Oh, for the love of- that is not the kind of first trial I had in mind. Well, at least it worked better than the bleeding stopgap. That stuff was wearing off when we were loading you into the ambulance. Couldn’t have been more than five minutes,” Orem groaned.

“Indeed, that is troubling. How would you rate the volume of bleeding? I’ll need to adjust my calculations,” Randus asked.

“Excessive! Exsanguinating! Torrential!” Orem barked, rolling his eyes.

“Could you be more specific?” Randus prodded. “Uh, assistant, take notes please?” He added to the robot, still perched on his good shoulder. It gave a salute with one of its front appendages.

“You want units of blood over time? Too many and not very long. I was a bit too preoccupied to take measurements,” Orem huffed. He sounded aggrieved.

“Oh. Of course. You were injured too, my apologies…” Randus replied softly, trying to moderate his scientific enthusiasm. _Abdominal trauma must’ve caused the ports to tear…_

“No, listen. This? This is just life for me.” Orem gestured at his stomach with a limp hand. “This has always been one jostle in a crowd or fall down the stairs away. You. Almost. Died. From messing with my French press, which we should have thrown away years ago.”

“I- I can make a prosthesis. Just as good as a real arm, better even. But you-“

“Will be fine. I’m sure I’ll be out of here before you, even. I’ll bring you back some materials to work with so you don’t get too bored.” Orem closed his eyes again. He looked terrible, too thin, too pale like always. Bustling around the lab in his long coat, Orem projected a vitality that entirely overshadowed his physical frailty. Dwarfed by the hospital bed and draped in loose cloths that threatened to swallow him up, his sickness became his most distinguishing feature, all the more drastic now that Randus was forced to truly confront it.

Kammis interrupted Randus’s worrying, sweeping into the room with a tray of food in one hand and an IV bag in the other. She was wearing a pale blue gauzy gown over her hospital garb, as well as gloves and a mask. “Alright boys, got you some dinner,” She said, trying her best to sound cheerful. She flipped up two bars that hung over Randus’s bed rail to support the tray before turning to Orem and hanging the bag from a hook on his IV pole. She gently fished a cathetered receptacle out of the collar of Orem’s robe and inserted the new line into the empty port of the Y-shaped access point. Randus could see for a moment where the line burrowed into the skin just below Orem’s collarbone before Kammis straightened the robe again.

“Can’t I have something? Tea? My mouth tastes like metal,” Orem pouted, fluttering his eyelids pathetically.

“Absolutely not,” Kammis replied, her cheerfulness sounding even more forced.

“If I promise not to swallow it?” He pressed.

“Gross. Fine. If you’re that desperate, but I’ll have to incline you, and Randus needs to WATCH you spit it out. I don’t trust you,” Kammis gave in, throwing her hands up in exasperation.

“It was a mistake, and it only happened that one time!” Orem complained faintly.

“A mistake that could have been avoided entirely by not putting anything in your mouth! It’s like he enjoys vomiting blood on his nice robes,” She retorted, making a face at Randus who laughed nervously, not certain if she was joking. Kammis moved a monitor hooked up to Orem and shoved his bed closer to Randus’s, until the side rails were touching. “I’ll be back with tea. Don’t just talk about experiments and forget to eat,” She called over her shoulder as she made her way out of the room.

“So, subclavian or cephalic..?” Randus asked, once Kammis was gone.

“Neither. Tunneled central venous,” Orem said smugly. “Just until the swelling around the new J-tube goes down. And good riddance to the gastrostomy port, I was hardly able to use it anyhow.”

“I see.” Randus absently reached for his tray with his right arm and choked back a shout as the movement sent bolts of searing pain through his whole right side. He looked mournfully at what was left of his right arm, just a neatly bandaged stump, no more than a hand’s width long. After a long, shuddering breath, Randus reached for the tray with his left hand. Assistant scampered down his arm and helpfully grabbed the knife. 

Orem and Randus watched as it began energetically cutting everything on his tray into 1” by .5” rectangles. The tiny robot gripped the knife in its two front multi-purpose appendages and used its left foreleg to brace what it was cutting while balancing on its remaining legs. The performance eventually coaxed an only-slightly-hysterical chuckle from Randus.

A faint pressure on his hip drew Randus’s gaze. Orem had stretched him arm slowly across the distance, under the rails, to rest his hand hesitantly against the nearest part of Randus. Wordlessly, Randus handed his fork to the assistant and reached down to grip Orem’s cold hand in his own. He held on desperately, the rare gesture of comfort from Orem simultaneously his emotional lifeline and also a stark indication of how catastrophically bad the past few days had been.

“The worst of it has already come and gone. You’re going to be fine,” Orem said firmly. His hand, initially limp in Randus’s, came to life, his thumb tracing slow, jagged circles against the back of Randus’s hand. 

Randus spread his fingers, pushed them through the spaces between Orem’s and re-tightened his grip daringly. When he glanced sidelong at Orem, he saw concern and a faint smile around the corners of his mouth. “Indeed,” Randus said quietly. The solemnity of the moment was immediately spoiled by the assistant, who was insistently brandishing a forkful of roasted potatoes in front of Randus’s mouth. “If I made a list, how quickly could someone bring me materials from fabrications?”

Orem snorted in amusement. “Exceptionally quickly, I should think.”

***

Kammis had meant to be in and out of the building in the shortest span of time possible. She wasn’t even really assigned to the hospital today, beyond the brief daily visit she made to check in with her residents. If Orem and Randus weren’t here she wouldn’t have come to this facility for more than an hour in the morning. As it was, she’d had to reschedule a number of her private practice clients in order to rescue Randus from the misery of the general hospital and see to her brother. She stopped dead in the building’s atrium when she saw Trelle awkwardly addressing the young woman currently posted up at the atrium nurses' station. 

It was definitely the same woman Kammis had met at the local foods festival a few weeks ago, there was no mistaking the color and cut of her hair. They’d even stayed in contact, sending frequent text messages. Kammis was hit by an unexpected bolt of dread, hoping that tragedy had not struck her new crush in the same abrupt manner that it had struck her. Without a second thought, Kammis struck forth to find out.

“Trelle? Is everything okay?” She asked quickly, before her uncertainty could get the better of her. Kammis tried to lean casually against the counter at the nurses’s station, then frantically tried to look less at home as she remembered the less-than-truthful description she’d given Trelle of her job. Trelle had seemed to dislike and distrust large for-profit organizations, particularly the Institute. Kammis had simply neglected to mention her deep personal involvement with the Institute and the specific portion of her work that went on under the Institute's purview

“Aaaaaah? Kammis! Uh? Yes? I’m fine. I was just looking for someone. For a friend. What are _you_ doing here?” Trelle was at first startled, then excited, then suspicious in turns. Her eyes shone with unguarded emotion as she processed Kammis’s unexpected appearance in stages. 

“I was just visiting my brother. He’s been here a couple days and I thought he could use a morale boost,” Kammis replied carefully, trying to thread the balance between sounding anxious and nonchalant. 

Trelle’s eye’s narrowed further momentarily in recognition. Her suspicion was replaced again by excitement as she replied. “Your brother? Does he look a lot like you? I think I might have met him earlier!” Her expression darkened perceptibly as she considered the encounter.

“I’m sure you couldn’t possibly have seen him, he’s in a very secluded area of the hospital. You would need special clearance to get in there,” Kammis replied skeptically, gesturing at the gown she was still wearing over her cloths. _Hospital scrubs, I’m wearing scrubs and a clinical coat, no way she doesn’t catch me in a lie. And I really liked her too…_ “I’m sorry, did you say you were looking for a friend, or looking for someone for a friend? I might be able to help, you know, because I’ve spent a lot of time here. Visiting my brother,” Kammis blurted, desperate to divert Trelle's attention. _There’s no way I could have possibly phrased that worse._

“Uh, well, looking at the request of a friend. It’s a friend-of-a-friend situation, really,” Trelle answered. She looked as shifty as Kammis felt. It was pretty vindicating not to be the only one caught out, honestly.

“Well, I guess there’s not much help for you then, you really can’t visit someone you don’t have any relationship with, especially if they don’t want to see you,” Kammis said confidently. She was thrilled to bring the conversation into a realm in which she had absolutely sound footing. “I was just leaving; I have to get back to my caseload downtown. Are you headed that way?” Kammis exhorted the young woman instinctively away from the nurses’ station. It never helped anyone to irritate the nurses, and she knew personally how much damage an unwanted guest could do to an unstable patient. Whomever Trelle was here to track down, they would eventually be found or not on their own terms. The two women made their way out of the hospital, Orem's tea entirely forgotten.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally, I was thinking that in order for a real-world AU version of Orem to conserve the same physical proportions, he would have to be sick. That's because the height-to-weight ratio of Eladrin is wayyyy off that of humans. They have an ethereal thinness that isn't compatible with the anatomy of a healthy human. Initially I was considering perhaps an eating disorder, but I don't want to get into the really serious issues that go along with portraying those types of illnesses. Instead, he has particularly severe Crohn's disease, in a sort of dedication to my dear friend Hyun, the post-doctoral scholar who trained me when I was a brand new baby graduate student. I could go on and on about the complications and treatments for Crohn's but that's not necessarily very interesting. Gastrostomy and jejunostomy ports are used to deliver enteral (within the digestive tract) nutrition in a form that is more easy to digest than solid food, or to bypass the stomach entirely (in the case of a J-tube). This is helpful when a patient is struggling to consume enough calories for any of a wide variety of reasons. If the digestive system is very badly damaged, total parenternal feeding can be done through IV to entirely avoid putting anything in the stomach and intestines.


	3. One step forward, two steps back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trelle and Kammis learn some undesirable truths about one another's occupations, and Orem and Randus have a bad time in the hospital.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning of vaguely and briefly described code blue/advanced life support. If that's encroaching on hurtful territory for you, skip the section between the two breaks.

Kammis could see Trelle staring sidelong at her as they walked in not-quite-companionable silence. The other woman seemed to exist under constant pressure, like a spring wound too tightly. The very air around her was tense and heavy in a way that made Kammis’s scalp prickle. It was both unsettling and surprisingly invigorating. When Kammis finally gave in and met Trelle’s eyes, she was struck by the electric intensity of her gaze. “Are you sure you’re okay?” Kammis asked, frowning.

“What?! I’m great? Why do you ask?” Trelle blurted out. She lifted one clenched fist to her chest, as if trying to ward off the scrutiny.

“You’ve been staring at me for several minutes now, I was beginning to be concerned,” Kammis replied. She stopped walking, cocked her right hip and rested her hand on it, and looked squarely at Trelle.

Trelle blushed furiously enough to color her café au lait-brown cheeks. _At least she has the decency to be embarrassed_ , Kammis thought, suppressing the urge to smile indulgently. The woman’s childish enthusiasm and transparent emotions were a refreshing change from her native cold, academic environment.

“I, uh, I was just thinking how terrible it is that your brother’s in the hospital. I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on work if one of my siblings was that sick,” Trelle replied haltingly, remembering with a twinge of guilt the young man she’d barged in on in room ICC-01, who would look just like Kammis if he weren’t dramatically underweight and sleep deprived. _He was a real jerk, but if I were in the hospital all the time, I might be too… And he seemed to be friends with this Randus Duthane, but if I ask Kammis about it, I’ll really blow my cover. Damn it._

Kammis frowned slightly and absently curled her left hand into a fist, tapping it gently against her leg. “I suppose I’m accustomed to it, although that’s a terrible thing to say. If I didn’t work when my brother’s in the hospital, there would be a lot of people looking for a new psychologist. Even if he’s the concern closest to my heart, he can’t be the only one on my mind.” And it truly was hard not think about him, not to worry about him languishing in an isolated sterile room. At least he wasn’t alone this time, although the company put him at an increased risk of infection. Kammis turned and resumed the march to her office.

Trelle started and took a few hurried steps to resumed walking by her side. “I… didn’t realize your office was so close to the restaurant district. The patisserie I work at is just around the corner, let me grab you something to go,” she blurted uncomfortably.

“No, that’s… Actually, yes, that would be great. Thank you.” Kammis forced herself to relax, matching her breathing to the rhythm of her walking cadence. The atmosphere around Trelle, disturbingly like an electromagnetic field, was particularly oppressive at the moment. _I guess today’s not her day either_.

Kammis hadn’t been to the Everdeep Delicatessen and Patisserie before, though she passed it every time she walked between the hospital and her private practice. The crunchy-granola meets hipster-snob fusion cuisine vibe suited neither her taste nor her upbringing. Once inside though, she had to admit that the sweet and delicate aroma of pastries and breads was intoxicating. Kammis waited, conspicuously ignoring the display cases, while Trelle slipped an apron over her slacks and blouse and disappeared into the back. A quick scan of the room made it clear that Trelle’s plain but high-quality dress cloths were not the workplace standard, and Kammis’s slow-simmering suspicion boiled back up.

As Trelle emerged from the kitchen with a bakery box in hand, a slick looking man approached her and began talking in a low voice. Kammis recognized the man vaguely as one of a number of largely interchangeable lawyers who acted as prosecutors for the watchdog organization the Twilight Guardians. While in principle she had no qualms with their mission, she absolutely disagreed with the undiscerning and often aggressive tactics they exhibited when pursuing causes. That he was whispering to Trelle, that he could even have something _to whisper_ to Trelle was deeply concerning. 

Kammis slid her gaze off the two of them and waited a few moments, pondering a variety of topics they could be conspiring on. _Relatives? They don’t look alike though. Doesn’t seem like someone she’d be friends with, or a lover either. Is she one of them? Is she… tailing me? No, she’s too clumsy for that. Meeting me must’ve been a coincidence, regardless of whatever… else._ Mind still racing, Kammis moved abruptly and decisively towards the exit.

“Oh no, wait! Kammis!” Kammis winced internally as Trelle called her name. _Nope, definitely oblivious. Not for long though._ She turned slowly toward the counter, assuming the carefully cultivated bland expression she always wore when dealing with the Guardians.

The lawyer’s eyes immediately widened in recognition, and Kammis allowed hers to narrow with displeasure in return as if noticing him, with disgust, for the first time in that very moment. “I’m so sorry Trelle, you seem quite busy. I’d best be on my way, I have patients to care for. What do I owe you?” Kammis kept her reply pointedly polite. Even if meeting Trelle had been a setup, the woman was genuine and compassionate, and so Kammis promptly rejected the possibility of treating her with outright unkindness.

“Oh, um, it- it’s on m- on the house. I’ll uh, see you around? Sometime?” Trelle took in the look that passed between her two acquaintances with no small consternation.

“Undoubtedly,” Kammis replied dryly.

***

Waiting for Kammis to return, Orem and Randus lurched tentatively into and out of several failed attempts at conversation before settling on a list of materials to requisition from the laboratory. Assistant dutifully recorded the voice memo while persistently offering bites of rapidly cooling hospital food to his creator. Randus largely ignored the offerings in favor of staring vaguely into the middle distance, tightly clutching Orem’s hand, his attention consumed by the effort to think clearly through the fog of pain and sedatives. After a time, Orem fell silent and Randus let the conversation drop. The long list of components they’d bickered over would give him a good start at the very least.

“You know, if you don’t eat, Kammis won’t approve your equipment requests. She’ll say you’re too ill to be working,” Orem finally said. Randus jerked slightly in surprise. Orem’s eyes had been closed, and with how still and quiet he’d been, Randus assumed he’d fallen asleep. “Also, she’ll give you a nasogastric feeding tube which, believe me, you will not enjoy.” One blue eye cracked open slightly to peer at him disapprovingly.

“R-right. Of course. I just thought I’d wait until your sister came back with tea,” Randus stammered, loathe to release Orem’s barely warmed hand from his grip.

“Don’t bother, she’d have been back already if she were actually coming. It’s probably for the best in any event,” Orem responded with a sigh. With deliberate slowness, he squirmed his hand free and rested his fingers again at Randus’s hip, tapping the very tips of them slowly against the coverlet. “My data indicate that the neural interface will function better the sooner you begin. You should get that list to Kammis as soon as… as soon… as. . . . a s . . .” As Randus watched, picking at his food half-heartedly, Orem’s eyelid fluttered shut and his sentence disintegrated into an unintelligible mumble.

Randus dropped his fork again and nudged Orem’s hand gingerly. “Orem? You doing okay?” There was no response, not even the slightest flicker of recognition. Randus reclaimed Orem’s limp hand, gripping it more firmly this time. His skin was clammy and already cool again, despite just having been released. Orem’s face was still, his lips beginning to take on a blue tinge. “OREM?” Randus shouted, a bolt of anxiety tearing through him.

As Randus began to reach for the call button, a chorus of shrill beeps erupted from Orem’s monitors. When he successfully reached it, a sharping pinging was added to the strident chorus of alarms. Within moments that passed like a painful eternity, several figures in gloves, gowns, and masks rushed into the room. Chaos immediately broke loose.

Randus’s bed was pushed to the side of the room with a jerk that left him reeling momentarily. As he looked on in horror, bags of blood were hurriedly plugged into the IV port near Orem’s collar bone and another that had been hidden on his upper arm. Chest compressions were started, paused just long enough for the second gowned figure to get Orem intubated and attached to a ventilator, and resumed as a third figure prepared manual defibrillator paddles.

After intubating Orem, the second figure whirled back to Randus, wild-eyed. They quickly pressed a few buttons on the infusion pump controlling the flow of medicine in his IV drip bag and Randus was returned unwillingly to darkness.

***

Torq arrived at the hospital to visit his friends, a bouquet of bright flowers in one massive hand and a selection of newly arrived scientific journals in the other. The brightly optimistic twinkle in his eyes dimmed as he rounded the last corner of the intensive care unit and saw a flurry of activity in Orem’s room. As he paused indecisively, a nurse rushed through the antechamber of the clean room wheeling a clearly unconscious Randus. It was Simi, one of the regular emergency department practitioners.

“Corellon’s beard, you’ve got some good timing on you Torq. Get mr. Duthane here to IC02 could you? I have to prep the surgical theater for Orem,” She cried, voice dripping with relief as she immediately recognized the giant man.

“A’course,” Torq replied, leaping to action. Flowers and journals hit the floor behind him as he hastily took charge of the bed, allowing Simi to bolt away. Torq sighed heavily as he rolled the bed into the indicated room and settled in once more to wait. “Randus, if ye could do me one favor an’ not try dyin’ on me like Orem does, I’d sure apprecicate that,” Torq grumbled, fiddling aimlessly with his hands.

The next time Randus awoke it was abruptly, eyelids snapping open with the call of his friend’s name already on his lips. Casting about with his hand pressed to his broken ribs to hold them still, Randus took in the new room with rising panic. 

“Alright there Randus?” A familiar booming voice presaged the appearance of Torq, his expression unusually severe. The man stuffed a rather crumpled looking bouquet into a vase on the windowsill before turning to the bed and resting a one big hand gingerly on Randus’s good shoulder.

“Y-yeah, I guess. That is, where’s Orem? Is he- he wasn’t breathing, is he-?” Randus shuddered to a halt on his train of thought, taking in Torq’s clenched jaw.

“Don’t rightly know. They got ‘im in surgery, an’ he ent dead yet so far’s I’ve heard,” Torq replied. His voice was low and steady, but his dark eyes betrayed his concern.

“I see… How long was I out?” Randus asked.

“Less’n an hour, poor Simi said ye got banged around pretty bad when the lot of ‘em run in there, an they din’t have time te handle ye gently,” Torq said slowly, voice uncharacteristically devoid of emotion. Taking his hand off Randus’s shoulder, he turned and thumped the side of a large box on the bedside table to change the subject. “Darkmist sent this over for ye, said ‘ee got a list sent from yer assistant an’ put in what all the folk in the lab could find right away.”

“Thank you Torq, that’s… that’s something. Are you going to wait here, or…?” Randus looked up at Torq expectantly, the fingers of his left hand clenched into a tight fist.

With a sigh Torq swung the table attachment of the hospital bed around over Randus’s lap before hefting the crate onto it within easy reach. “I’ll be o’er by surgery, let ye know when there’s any word. Be careful with them knives an’ needles an’ framostats, don’t need you letting no more a’ yer blood out.

“Indeed.” Randus’s answer was mechanical, his attention immediately and entirely consumed with rummaging through the supplies as feverishly as his injuries allowed. A case of syringes loaded with serums of his own design rose to his hand, and he immediately injected one directly into his neck without sparing a sound for the discomfort. As the medicine quickly lifted the fog from his mind, Randus set to work positioning mirrors and directing his assistant. He would not wait and worry idly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've written this (poorly, no doubt) in bits and scraps of stolen time, and that's probably pretty evident. But if I waited to edit it more, who knows how many additional months it would be before I put it up? At this point the next idea I have is already crushing weighing pretty heavily on my braincase but I don't have any time for writing at the moment. Being an adult sucks.


End file.
